We watch aghast as state-sanctioned persecution of Christians, and other minorities, unfolds globally. In India, the streets are ablaze as protest ignites over a deceptive law proposed by Narendra Modi’s government to “protect” minority migrant groups from discrimination with preferential citizenship rights, all the while excluding and, possibly expelling, Muslim immigrants. Wide-ranging destructive consequences could include a deluge of Hindu migrants displacing fragile Christian and minority ethnic communities in the north-east of the country.
Just a few weeks ago, Russia’s President Putin stood alongside Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban earnestly pledging to protect war-ravaged Christians in “cradle of Christianity” at a joint meeting with Christian leaders from the Middle East. Yet in Russia, both evangelical and Orthodox Christian leaders are sounding alarm bells over heavy-handed misuse of counter-terrorism legislation to oppress Protestant Christians.
Meanwhile in communist China, a chilling country-wide programme of AI surveillance, designed to watch and record citizens’ every move, will leave no place to hide for already hard-pressed minorities, including Christians who face ever increasing pressures and invasive control in churches and in their daily lives.
A great paradox of these times are the banners of protection, anti-extremism and social cohesion being waved in India, Russia and China where “anti-persecution” policies are perpetrating the very oppression against minorities they claim to be seeking to protect them from.
